Scenes from Childhood with Snape and Lily
by livelyautumnleaf
Summary: Various scenes from Snape and Lily's childhood and years at Hogwarts, not chronological.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He saw her form from a distance, a long, even skinnier shadow cast by the glow of a setting sun traced on the earth. Summer was ending, and they'd be on the train to Hogwarts tomorrow. It hurt him to think of the evening as the mark of a beginning to an ending. But this is how it would remain in his memory forever after.

"Um, hi, Lily." He said, approaching the girl crouched at the edge of the long gravel driveway that led up to her house. He paused. "What are you looking at?"

"There was a snake."

"Oh." He looked. "I don't see it."

"No, it went into the grass an half hour ago."

"Oh. You've been out here that long?"

"Just since after dinner. Tuney threw a fit at the table and so I'm trying to avoid her."

"Aren't you excited to be going to Hogwarts?" He tried to sound excited, but that just wasn't the way he was. "It's the proper place for you. Away from your horrible sister."

"She isn't horrible. Mum says she's just jealous. She really wants to go too."

"But she calls you a freak when she should be worshipping you."

Lily turned to look at him, "Why should she worship me?"

"We're better than all of them. We have something they don't have—and instead of fearing you like your parents do, she calls you a freak. Wait till next summer. Then maybe even we'll be able to kill her."

"My parents don't fear me. And it's wrong to kill anyone."

"Even the most evil person in the world? Even," he tried to think of someone really bad who she would know, "even Hitler?"

"Okay, maybe Hitler."

"You have a lot to learn at Hogwarts, Lily."

"I don't need to learn what's right and wrong, Sev. I can judge for myself."

"You don't even realize how afraid your parents are of you."

"How are they afraid of me, Sev?"

"You said they don't even come and kiss you goodnight anymore."

"Because they think I'm too old. Your parents don't either."

"And you don't have a bedtime anymore."

"So?"

"You can eat whatever you want, go wherever you want—even your sister can't stop you."

"Not really. They don't really care. They did try to stop me from seeing you though."

"That's because they know we can grow powerful together. We're full of magic. We can do stuff. I could blow up the whole neighborhood if I really wanted to."

"You're silly. If that were true, they wouldn't be sending me to Hogwarts. My parents just don't think you're a good friend for me because you're so melancholy and brooding and you don't treat them with any respect and take advantage of the fact you're the only wizard I know, my only link to the wizardry world. You and your mum."

"They're muggles. They're boring and stupid. They don't understand me, and they are beginning to misunderstand you. They thought you needed therapy, remember? Before they found out you were a witch. Now they think you're dangerous and, although of course they should be proud of having a witch in the family, they're also afraid because you're different. They can't relate to you. They'd never tell you they're afraid, but they are. They're afraid to hurt you because when you get upset…well, we both know what can happen then. They're afraid to tell you, but they don't love you. They're glad Hogwarts will take you away."

"My parents love me!" Lily said, tears welling up in her eyes. She got up off the ground, wiping her eyes angrily. "You're so mean. How can you say they don't? Just because your parents bicker all the time and your father hates you for what you are."

"You'd be smarter not to love them! They're weak! Just like my father! My father is a fool! I hate him. And my mum was stupid enough to marry him. I wish they'd let me live with my aunt and uncle. They're the only true wizards I really have, except for you Lily."

"Fine, go live with them then! Then I'd never have to see you ever again!" Lily said, stomping off towards the house.

Severus wanted to run after her. Severus wanted to go to school tomorrow reconciled, riding in the same car in the train all the long way to Hogwarts, being sorted into the same house, competing in the same classes…. They'd had many spats like this throughout the years they'd grown up. But there was always tomorrow to reconcile. There was always tomorrow to go back over to Lily's house, a glowering and morose curtain of reluctance to sweep away with her small smile ,the way he slender pale fingers brushed back the strands of his jet black hair when she wanted to see his face and he purposely hid it, pretending to be angry, just so she would reach out her hand to touch him.

Severus had never been as close to anyone as he was to Lily. He could not remember his life before Lily. There had been life and there had been Lily, and it had simultaneously began then. A burst of sunshine and red hair swirled into his earliest childhood memories—and then his whole world had expanded like a balloon, like the universe after the big bang. Before the sky was gray and the ground gray and his skin ashen and his eyes washed out and watery as mud puddles. And he knew he was important to her too—he was her sanity, her logic. He had banished the chaos from her life and had restored sense and order—he was nearly a god. He had explained to her magic as soon as he sensed its presence in her.


	2. Chapter 2

Severus Snape remembers the day he found out Lily was a witch. It was a March afternoon after dull muggle school and as usual Petunia and Lily were "babysat" by the old woman on the end of their street Mrs. Fallows. Babysat is a foolish way of putting it. She simply sat in her parlor reading until she fell asleep in an armchair while he and Lily snuck off into the woods behind the house and played. Petunia, with the excuse of "making sure they didn't get in trouble", nearly always followed them. She was an overprotective older sister and quite an unimaginative, tattling little snob. And she and Severus hated each other.

"Hey, Lily, want to play pirates?"

"Only if I'm captain."

"Nah uh, I'm captain!"

"I want to play!" Petunia said.

"No you don't. You always complain and end up crying."

"Do not!"

"I'm captain!" Lily said, tearing a stick off of a rotting tree branch with a twist. "I'll fight you for it! En garde!" She pointed it at Sev.

Sev picked up a club-like branch, grinning maliciously at Tuney. "Want to fight too?" He asked her.

"N-no! You could hurt someone!"

"Calm down, Tuney. We're just playing."

"Who says I'm playing?" Sev asked, swinging at Tuney. "RAWR!"

"Stop it!" Tuney screamed, stepping back with her arms in front of her face. She turned back to the house. "I'm telling Mrs. Fallows!"

"You do that." Sev smirked triumphantly, watching her go. He looked back at Lily, noticing her frown. "Avast, ye pirate!" He cried, poking her with his branch.

"Aw, Sev. Now you've summoned the wrath of Mrs. Fallows, and she'll make me sit inside and read to her again. And she'll make you go home." Lily protested, parrying his branch half-heartedly.

"Nothing we can do now. Let's go farther in and look for treasure, so she can't find us." Sev said, already starting to run.

"You're so stupid." Lily groaned. But she followed him anyway into the trees until the house was completely out of sight.

"Huh, looks like there's no treasure so far." Sev said after they'd slowed down to walk for a while. He peered down at the ground, kicking up the wet, brown leaves of last year with his feet as he moved. They still hadn't dropped their weapons, for who knew what sorts of creatures lived in these woods.

"I bet I can find treasure faster than you can!" Lily said.

"I doubt it." Sev said. "You lack certain abilities of observation."

"Oh, do I?" She challenged. She looked at him, her green eyes glittering mischievously.

Sev almost did a double-take. _Could she really know?_ He thought. _After all, she had proven herself to be no ordinary muggle._

"First one to find treasure wins!" She shouted, running behind some trees.

"You just have to make everything a competition, don't you?" He shook his head. _Silly girl. How could she know?_

Sev walked quietly towards an opening in the trees, scanning around for something he could find for treasure, but not being aware of his surroundings. He wasn't really too concerned with winning and was suddenly thinking more and more about how Lily would react if she knew what he was. _She should be proud of me. _He thought. _And afraid. Yes, she'd probably be afraid. Or she'd just be completely childish about it and laugh it off. Yes, that would be Lily. Not taking anything too seriously. It'd ruin our friend dynamic though—and that's the truth. Once I'm old enough to go to Hogwarts, I'll probably never see her again. No reason to return to that hellhouse again._

The trees thinned out into an open field with a padlocked fence. Probably a neighbor's property. Without thinking Sev dropped his club and climbed over it into the overgrown grass. The wind blew harder and it began to rain in sprinkles. His hooded, cotton jacket was hardly enough. He clenched the cuffs with his fists, closing the sleeve holes, and shivered. "Damn it," He spoke to himself. "We'll have to go home if it keeps up."

WHACK!

Something had whirled up from behind and slapped him just behind the knees. "CHRIST!" He screamed, his knees buckled and he sat on the ground. He spun his head around, glaring at the culprit Lily Evans, red hair twirling in the wind and the stick still in her hand, grinning from ear to ear.

"What the fuck, Lily?!"

Lily frowned. He knew how much she hated swear words, but fuck! That hurt.

"Never leave yourself defenseless in the woods." She said, smiling again. "Just be glad it was me and not a troll."

"That really hurt. God."

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." She said, but still laughing.

"I'm going to get welts from this."

"No you're not."

"Ahh…" He sighed, flopping onto the grass and massaging the backs of his knees.

"She sat down beside him, holding something in her hands.

"What's that?" He asked.

"Just some treasure I found."

"Really? What is it?"

"I'm not showing you." She said, sticking out her tongue.

"God, you can be so immature."

"I'm not immature." Lily said, frowning. "You're starting to sound like Tuney. You were stupid enough not to bring a stick along and not be paying much attention."

"It's just a game, Lily!" Snape yelled, suppressing any unnecessary vulgarities. He rubbed his leg mechanically, even though most of the pain was gone.

"You have such a wild imagination." He added. "You have so much energy. Man…"

"I wore you out?" She asked, now being serious.

"Yeah…and also, it's going to start raining, I think."

They looked up into the miserable grey skype, both frowning.

"So what treasure did you find, or are you not going to show me?" He inquired.

"I'll show it to you, if only you can keep it a secret." Lily said.

_If only I can keep it a secret… Does she even know how many secrets I already keep? _He sighed, sitting up. "Of course I can keep it a secret." He said. "What is it that it's so ghastly important?" He looked at her, surprised at the seriousness in her emerald eyes.

"Watch." She said. She opened her hands.

And he couldn't believe it. There were flowers—pink flowers at the edge of winter—growing and blooming in the palms of her hands. There was no other way to describe it—it was magic.

"Lily…" He breathed, watching the flowers. "Who taught you this?"

"No one taught me this. I just…yesterday I remember after you were sent home by Mrs. Fallows I was reading to her and looking out the window at the rain and wishing for spring and feeling depressed and such. Spring's my favorite season, you know. And I was reading to her about all these flowers blooming in a garden—it was really beautifully described—and I suddenly thought about how I wanted a garden—a garden right then and there. And so then later that night it was raining harder and I couldn't sleep and suddenly there in my room, the shadows began to look like a garden…but a terrible, corrupted garden. So suddenly, I threw open my hands in distress and from them these sprouted and bloomed. I was hoping it'd happen again today, so I could show you. I tried so hard to fixate on those same feelings and memory."

Sev stared at her, completely transfixed. But then suddenly it all made sense. How could it be any other way! Of course he had liked her all along because she was a witch—he knew her soul to soul, that they were the very same sorts of people, outsiders of this ordinary world!

"Lily," Sev spoke gently, trying to manage the excitement welling up in him. "Lily, you're a witch."

"What?" Lily said.

"You heard me." Sev said, a brilliant smile creeping across his sallow face. "You're a witch."


	3. Chapter 3

"A witch, Sev?" Lily repeated. _Green. Warts. Old hag on a broom. _"Is that what I am? But I thought…" _Cackle. What did I think it was called? I never thought there'd be a label for it. It just was unique. Like a princess._ _I felt so powerful. _"I can't be a witch!"

"Lily, you just used magic right in front of me. What do you think you are?" Sev said, laughing at how ridiculous Lily was being. He looked up at the clouded sky as the rain began to fall around them. The surrounding trees thrashed violently, personified by wind. All of his excitement was already fading away. _Of course Lily was a witch._ He suppressed a shiver of cold that ran through the arms of his black cotton hoodie, pushing his hand through his long, stringy black hair and looking around. "We should go back to the house."

Lily glared silently at the trampled grass. Her freckled face was wrinkled into a most bizarre scowl. _It felt so powerful and good. Suddenly something had run through me. Something took over me. I felt I was so much more than I had ever believed myself to be. Could something so natural to me be so—not unique, but freakish?_ She curled her hands into fists; her nails digging into her palms.

He studied her, waiting for a response, already turned back to the fence.

"What?" He finally asked.

"You shouldn't call me a witch…just because…I'm a, a freak!" She shouted suddenly, staring at him with glittering eyes. Smoke snaked between her clenched fingers. The flower petals were on fire in her fists. She opened them in shock.

Sev just stood there watching the flowers smolder. "You're not a freak, Lily." He said softly.

"You called me a witch!" She threw her arms down to her sides, the embers of petals falling from her hands.

"I don't understand how being a witch makes you a freak, Lily." Sev said.

"Well, of course you don't because you're a freak too!" She said, her eyes rolling and her arms outstretched dramatically. "Always sitting in the corner of class brooding like you'd blow up the whole classroom in half a second if you could get away with it! You don't care about anyone! Sure, you're smart. But you're judgmental of everyone! You're always complaining about how stupid everyone is! And now I don't know! I have this power too!"

Sev's mouth popped open. "So you knew I was a wizard all along?"

"…No!' She faltered. _So that's how he knows so much._ "But I knew something was different about you—I just knew!" She said, eyes blazing in a strange insanity as she looked at him. "Yet, I liked you and wanted to be your friend…. You seemed lonely." She dropped her voice, straightening up.

"What's wrong with me?" She sighed, stepping towards him. She put her head on his boney shoulder and drew him close to her, hugging him. He felt her warm, sooty palms on his back and hesitantly wrapped his arms around her. He suddenly understood how she was feeling then, like himself plenty of times. _Isolated._ But he hadn't noticed this feeling—it had been for so long—it had become such a part of him, he had forgotten it like his an ear or an eyebrow or a toe. And then again, it didn't stop him from playing friends with Lily—from pretending to be a normal human.

He hugged her gently and whispered. "Now we are true friends."

"So you can do magic too?" She asked, letting go of him.

"Not on command…but when I get emotionally out of control, it comes out. Like what happened to those two ugly muggles in the bathroom last month."

"Muggles? You mean the bullies you dunked in the toilet?"

"Only with magic. I can't control what I do, so they best be wise and stay out of my way."

"So you're a wizard?"

"Yes." Sev said, realizing he'd have to explain everything to Lily. "In the Wizarding World, girls who use magic are called witches and men who use magic are called wizards. Muggles are humans who can't use magic."

"The Wizarding World?"

"We're not actually alone. There are others of our kind. We just live out in the middle of nowhere. We're the children of the country bumpkins of the Wizarding World living out in muggle civilization—the people with the weird marriages and stuff."

"Huh?"

"Well, that's my family anyway. It's as dirty as incest for a witch or wizard to marry a muggle. And you're, well…you're a surprise witch. A completely unplanned addition to the Wizarding population."

"I'm not unplanned!" Lily shouted, pushing Sev away with a shove.

He stumbled a few steps back, laughing. "We're both freaks, I guess you're right. Misplaced."

"Misplaced…" Lily sighed. "How am I misplaced just because I can use magic?"

"But then once we turn eleven, we'll be taken away from this shithole. And go to Hogwarts. And life will be livable there." Sev tried to smile encouragingly.

"Hogwarts? What is this? Neverland, Peter Pan?"

"It's a school that'll teach us magic. My mother went there…before she decided to go off and settle down with a _muggle_." He sneered.

"Your mom's a witch?" Lily asked curiously.

"Yes. But she's pretty much non-practicing now…. But that won't happen to you, Lily." He said, awkwardly taking her hand. "You'll be saved from a horrible, ugly muggle husband and marry a wizard who can take care of you."

"I don't want to marry anyone." She said, pulling her hand out of his reach.

Sev shrugged, wiping his hand of his pant leg. "We should go home."

"Yeah, we should." Lily agreed, pushing past him towards the fence.

As they wandered back through the alder and birch trees towards the house, Lily felt overcome with depression. What could she do? She couldn't tell her parents. She felt so alone. So there was a Wizarding World, but they lived outside of it—in isolation. _Even Sev was suddenly acting weird about it. _All relationships wer going to change and reorganize in her life, she realized, and she felt so much stress. The day had turned gloomy. Clouds had completely coated the sky and the forest had grown murky. She saw Mrs. Fallows' standard brick house, that was just like everyone else's in the town, emerging from the opening in the trees and her heart sank.

"Good night, Sev." Lily said, suddenly wishing to be alone as soon as possible to think things over, walking up the steps to the backdoor. "You better get out of here before Mrs. Fallows kills you too."

Sev laughed darkly. "She can't kill either of us."

"Well, good night, Sev." She said, opening the door.

"Wait, Lily. If you need me…for anything…." He said, toeing the dirt path that led around the house. "I am always here for you. Just…don't tell your parents."

Lily glowered. "I wasn't planning to tell anyone. Don't tell me what to do." And she shut the door.


	4. Chapter 4

Lily sat by the door, waiting impatiently for her mother to get off of work and take them home. She already had her tennis shoes back on, curled up on the linoleum floor, hugging her knees with her back pressed against the wall. Tuney was still sitting in the parlor with Mrs. Fallows, working on her homework, probably with the stupidest, self-satisfied grin on her horse-like face—overjoyed that Mrs. Fallows had chewed out her little sister for wandering onto private property with an impoverished, scruffy boy who was only headed to juvenile detention and had hopefully put some sense into her.

Lily was thoroughly sick of them both, but especially of her sister for being such a sensitive, tattletaling coward. If Tuney had something against Sev, why couldn't she confront him herself? That would win his respect in a minute. But instead she always chose to go off to report her personal problems to the authorities and have them deal with it, and that just made Sev hate her more. What a crybaby she was being.

_Dear god. What would Tuney think of me if she knew?_ She kept asking herself. _I don't think Tuney could stand to be in the same room with me again. She'd go crazy if she even suspected there was something abnormal about me. No. There's no way any of my family can find out what's wrong with me._ Lily concluded. She sighed, feeling so empty inside, yet heavy with a secret.

_What if I can't control it either?_ She wondered. _What if Tuney makes me so angry I set her on fire too? No. I'd never do that to my sister. But still something could happen…. Or even like the flowers. A completely innocent wish overcame me so badly I wanted it to be fulfilled. What if I can't stop this sort of desire? True, I can be manipulative and competitive to get what I want…but now, even with magic…it'll be even worse._

Lily heard her mother's footsteps step onto the wooden front porch and immediately she stood up and tried to smooth out her clothes. Her mother rang the bell, and Lily waited a few seconds before she opened the door.

"Oh, Lily!" Mrs. Evans exclaimed, eyeing her daughter in surprise. "How was your day, darling?"

"Fine." Lily shrugged.

"Mother!" Petunia cried, running towards the door with an open backpack clutched in her hands and her homework folder sticking halfway out.

"Hello, dear." Her mother said.

Tuney pushed past Lily to hug her mother, dropping the backpack.

"Mother, Lily's been simply awful today. Sev threatened to beat me with a stick and then he and Lily ran off onto private property so Mrs. Fallows couldn't punish them."

"That's not how it was." Lily protested, knowing it was useless when Tuney had worked up a story in her mind to fit her warped perception of reality. Her sister would no longer listen to anyone, except to someone of higher authority—but only if they repeated what they had to say over and over to her.

"Who is Sev?" Their mother asked.

"Severus Snape. Just the neighbor boy that lives down the street in that dump of a house. He's a lot of trouble that one. Kicks the neighbor's dog." Mrs. Fallows said, standing behind Lily with her arms crossed.

"Only once when it attacked him." Lily said, trying to remain calm. She already felt herself getting emotional and didn't want to start an attack—what she had decided to call the slips of magic. She worked hard to take deep breaths, concentrating on the ugly pink and yellow floral print on the white linoleum and counting the squares.

"Why don't we talk about this later?" Her mother sighed, noticing both her children's distress. She retied the belt around her beige trench coat and helped Tuney to zip up her backpack, leading her out the door with Lily following. "Thank you, Mrs. Fallows." Their mother said, closing the door behind them.

As soon as the door closed, Tuney started up again. "Mother, you can't let Lily run wild this way. You must talk some sense into her. She's not very _mature_." She said. She had obviously just learned this word.

Her mother sighed. "Well, Tuney, she's younger than you are. You need to learn to be patient."

Tuney scowled. "That's no excuse. Only by one year."

"True." Mrs. Evans said. She looked at Lily, who seemed to be thinking about something very hard. "Well, alright, Lily. Why don't you tell me your version of the afternoon?"

"Sev and I were going to play pirates. Tuney wanted to join us, and she couldn't handle a practical joke and blew the whole thing out of proportion, running to Mrs. Fallows to tattle on us. So we decided to go deeper into the forest to play by ourselves. We didn't know it was private property. We thought it was Mrs. Fallows'."

"I didn't blow it out of proportion! Sev tried to hit me with a stick!"

"He was just playing. We're pirates after all. Pirates have swords."

"Enough." Their mother said. "Lily, I think Sev might not be the best of friends to have. Whether or not it was for play, he did try to hit your sister with a stick."

"We were sword fighting!"

"Well then, did Petunia have a sword?"

"No!" Petunia said.

"Well, she could've been resourceful and found one."

"From my understanding your friend had a stick and tried to attack Petunia, who was defenseless. He doesn't sound like a very good friend. He sounds like a bully."

"He was just playing! He wasn't trying to attack her. And there were tons of sticks on the group she could've used."

"I don't care, Lily. Playing _or_ fighting with sticks isn't a safe thing to do. You could've gotten hurt."

"We weren't going to hurt each other. We were playing pirates and fighting for Captain."

"You see there, that word fighting. That isn't playing."

"I don't want you to hang out with this friend of yours Sev, Lily. I don't think he's a good influence on you. You must drop this friendship." Her mother continued.

Lily said nothing.

"Do you understand me?" Her mother asked her.

Lily stared at their front door, waiting for her mom to unlock it. Finally, she nodded.

"Good." Mrs. Evans said, opening the door.

Tuney grinned victoriously as she walked first into the house, followed sullenly by Lily, and their mother closed the door behind them.


	5. Chapter 5

The plan had worked out perfectly for over a week. Lily was beginning to doubt she could even use magic. Nothing unusual had happened. Not a single toe deviated from the walk to school and back.

She made a rule with Sev that they wouldn't talk anymore about magic—and perhaps it would go away, she hoped. Sev just rolled his eyes when she asked him to do that. And he had a way of bringing it up every time she snuck out of Mrs. Fallows' house to play with him.

"Magic's such a taboo with your muggle folks. How does it feel knowing you won't be accepted by them if you told them the truth?"

'Shut up!" Lily snapped. "It's impossible for me to be your friend and continue discussing it. It needs to go away."

"Why don't you stop using pronouns and call it what it is, Lily? It's magic. I just wish there was someone who would discuss magic with me." Sev spoke edgily. "You're acting just like my mum. All of you are impossible—you muggle lovers! Trying to fit into a society that will never accept us! Lying and hiding and sneaking! You're cowards!"

"I'm not a coward!" Lily said. "But I won't allow myself to hurt my family. I need to get rid of it somehow. I need to be normal for them."

"You can't be normal for them, Lily." He said. "Don't you see? You're different from your parents and your sister. And you can't change who you are. You're a witch, and that's that. Try to conceal it? Just watch yourself explode. It's not a secret easily hidden—there are tendencies and even the slightest actions lead to suspicion. And when they find out, believe me, not only will they hate you, but you'll want nothing to do with them."

"How can they hate me for something I can't control?" Lily felt herself shaking uncontrollable. "But you never told me all those years you were a wizard, and I didn't know."

"You're a blissfully oblivious person, Lily." Sev smiled. "But you felt something was different—something all the other school children picked up on too, but where they felt danger—you were _drawn_ to me."

"I was not _drawn_ to you."

"Well, you liked me. And you're the only one who does. But it's not like I'm the only one who likes you." He looked away quickly, folding his arms.

They were sitting under a chestnut tree, munching on chocolate Lily had taken from the bowl on Mrs. Fallows' coffee table.

"I don't care who likes me." Lily said. "Family is different. My family is important to me. I can't just…just…you're right, I can't lie to them anymore. I need to tell them."

"Don't do that! That's just suicide!"

"What can I do then?"

"What you're doing now. Just, I don't want you to have to pretend around me—I want you to be who you are. And let me be who I am. We can be each other's sanctuary."

"Until Hogwarts?" Lily asked. _And what about my family?_ She felt the very fabric of her soul burn—her family, her grandparents, her sister, her mum and dad, her teachers, her other school friends, Mrs. Fallows, and all the other people in the world she naively believed herself to be connected to. And now there was only Sev—only Sev—a frayed corner of a once magnificent tapestry.

"Until Hogwarts."

"How will they even find us?" Lily asked, feeling so alone. How Sev could always do this to her—make her feel so desolate and hopeless. She hated this about him. But she knew he too felt this same loneliness. But she fought against it while he just accepted it and was always mopey.

"They know about all of us. No doubt they know about you too—the second you performed magic, they sensed it."

"Then why aren't they taking us away now?" She asked.

"Because…what would they do with us? We're not old enough to go to Hogwarts. And also, they want us to enjoy our _childhood_." Sev sneered. What childhood had he had?_ Nine years in this hell's circus. And still two more years to go._

"Why doesn't your mum practice magic anymore?" Lily asked.

"She stopped once she fell in love with my dad." Sev said.

"Why?"

"Because he's a muggle. And she wanted to have a normal family, I guess."

"Your dad doesn't know she's a witch?"

"No, he does." Sev said. He looked up at the leaves that were starting to bud on the twisted, fat branches of the old tree. And then he added quietly. "He beats her."

"And even when he beats her," Sev continued softly, in an unsettlingly calm and methodical way, "she does nothing. So he keeps beating her. Sometimes sober, other times drunk.

"He can't accept that my mother is a witch. Or he thinks witches should be useful and turn rocks into gold or something. He won't accept any sort of helpful magic to wash dishes or sweep the kitchen. And then he beats her when the house is dirty. What does she expect? She hasn't been taught how to clean. She's pureblood. And because my father's extremely religious, he won't leave her because he married her. And he just makes our lives living hell.

"I set him on fire once one night when he came home particularly drunk. I also might've poisoned his food unintentionally." Sev smiled crookedly. "He doesn't bother me anymore. But she lets him beat her. She believes she's a sinner too." Sev sighed. "What a foolish woman. She tries to read me the bible too, but I won't listen to her. So she's rejected me as a damned soul and her punishment."

"That's horrible—that's wrong." Lily said, tears flooded her vision, and she began to cry. "Is the world really so horrible?"

"How could the muggle world not be?" Sev said without sympathy.

"You're not a punishment." Lily sobbed. "You're my best friend." She wrapped her arms around Sev, squeezing him tightly. "You're all I have now."

Sev touched her hair in response, studying the way the light shimmered across her copper hair. "You have always been all I have…the only thing I have right now anyway." He said. "But that will change. I'll be a famous wizard one day…and I'll be able to make you happy too."

"You make me happy already." Lily said, thinking of his company and how afraid she was to go home because there she would only feel more alone.

"Do I really?" Sev laughed. "I think I make you cry more than anything these days."

Lily laughed. "I'm just sensitive like Tuney. I'm being such a baby." She let go of him and wiped her eyes.

"Our suffering now hardens us to achieve a better future." Sev said.

"Yes." Lily said. "That sounds right."

"The Wizarding World is freer than the muggle world. In the Wizarding World there is possibility…if one has the aptitude and perseverance."

"Yes." Lily nodded.

"Do not despair, Lily Evans." Sev said, touching her pale, freckled cheek with his skeleton hand, and looking with his black eyes into her brilliant green eyes. "We should go home."

Lily nodded, avoiding his eyes for fear of what kinds of things he'd see. Even she didn't understand them.


	6. Chapter 6

Lily still couldn't believe it, sitting alone on her four-poster-bed in the girls' dormitory of the Gryffindor tower. They were in separate houses. They were rivals—no, there was no way they wouldn't remain best friends just because of a stupid housing situation.

And the fact there were so many students buzzing around her was so overwhelming. She didn't care—even if they were all witches and wizards like her and so much more knowledgeable about this new magical world than she was. She kept worrying about Sev and imagining him in a similar situation in the Slytherin commons. She replayed her emergence from under the warm darkness of the sorting hat and remembered immediately taking the coldest glare from Sev she had ever seen in her life, his morose expression sticking out like a wand in the cluster of the nervous, bright faces of the first year students.

_Well, what does he know?_ She had thought. _Who says he's going to get into Slytherin?_

But of course he did. Just as he had said on the train.

_How could best friends who have shared the same world since childhood be sorted into such different houses, have such divergent destinies, and be supposedly such unalike people?_ She couldn't believe it, and she would prove them all wrong. She and Sev would be best friends forever.

"You're Lily, right?" A first year girl with large, cobalt eyes and black braided hair asked her. Lily recognized her as the one who had been sorted just before Severus. She had hoped they had gone out of order—and Sev was supposed to go first and be sorted into Gryffindor. What she would do if they could trade houses! _Maybe there was some sort of quota for the number of students in each house. There had to be a mistake. Maybe the system was just corrupted!_

"Yeah." Lily said, turning to her unpacked luggage as an excuse not to talk.

"I'm Geraldine. Geraldine Sinclair."

"Are you a muggle born too?" Lily asked, keeping her face turned from Geraldine. She was so agitated; she felt herself ready to burst into tears. She unclasped the trunk and began to take out shirts.

"Me? No… But my grandma's sister's a muggle."

Lily grimaced. _Why is that something to be proud of?_ She wondered.

"Are you?"

"No. What makes you think that?" Lily said, stacking the folded sweaters and shirts on her bed.

"So you are then…?"

_What are you? A lost Hufflepuff? _Lily thought.

"Yes, I'm a…a completely unplanned addition to the Wizarding population." Lily sighed.

"Hahahaha!" Geraldine laughed. "That's a good one. Unplanned! You're so self-deprecating, Lily!"

Lily looked up from her luggage. _Self-deprecating?_ She wondered. _Maybe the girl wasn't stupid._

"It's just what my friend called me. I think it's a good way to put it." Lily said reflectively.

"It's not the way I'd put it." Geraldine said. "That's just depressing. Unplanned—as if you're not wanted. What kind of friend says that about you?"

"He's just different." Lily snapped. "Don't judge him. He grew up all his life hated by his own parents. And I don't even know if my parents really like me being a witch. Sometimes, a lot of times..." She choked. "I think they just want me to be normal, muggle Lily again. But I never really was just normal, muggle Lily…it's just an illusion they had of me in their rational, unobservant muggle minds. I was never normal…." _Why am I telling this all to her? Some random strange girl in my dormitory?_ She felt she was betraying Sev by telling this girl what few things she had—some secrets were already unfolding from her chest just because of a stupid housing situation! How pathetic! Hadn't they lived houses away from each other their whole lives? And this girl could do nothing to help her. She'd never understand the muggle world.

"Oh, Lily." Geraldine said, already squeezing onto her bed to hug her. Lily began to cry.

"I'm sorry." Lily said—more to Sev than anyone, trying to wipe her eyes. "I'm fine. When I get angry, I cry. It's stupid." She also felt extremely comfortable being touched by someone she barely knew. She didn't even like it when Sev hugged her.

"It's not stupid…. Well, it is, but I do the same thing."

Lily fell silent.

"Was it that funny looking guy with the long black hair? I thought he was a girl!" Geraldine giggled.

"His name is Sev."

"Sev?"

"Well, I call him that. But Severus is his full name."

"Severus…yuck! What a terrible name."

"I like it." Lily said.

"You seem to like a lot of dark, gloomy things don't you?" Geraldine smiled. "But they're so boring. My sister's the same way. Super goth. Her name's Juniper…if you happen to run into her. She's a third year this year, but in Hufflepuff." _So she does have ties to Hufflepuff…_ Lily thought.

"Well, what do you like then?" Lily said. _We've heard enough about me for the whole school year. _She cringed.

"What do I like…?" Geraldine repeated, smiling at the ceiling as she thought. "Books…I really do like books—even muggle books." She admitted, pressing a finger against her lips. "Also, boys."

"Boys?" Lily asked, shaking her head to hide her embarrassment at such a blatant confession about love.

"There's this boy I met in a bookshop in Diagon Alley who's in the second year here. And I got sorted into the same house as he did!" She whispered into Lily's ear. "I knew I was going to get into Gryffindor!"

"Just for some boy?" Lily frowned. _What nonsense! _But then again…how different was she from Lily then? But this _was_ different. Sev was her only and best friend in the world. "You fancy him then?"

"Shh! Yes, obviously!" Geraldine laughed so loudly other girls in the room were staring at her. Lily couldn't help chuckling at the sight of pudgy Geraldine falling back onto the bed, slowly turning as pink as the inside of a grapefruit.

But clearly the girl couldn't keep many secrets, Lily realized in horror. How stupid she had been to tell her anything about Sev!

"What's his name?" Lily asked.

"I can't tell you. Or then you'd know too much." Geraldine said, sitting up.

"I could probably guess soon enough." Lily said.

"Maybe." Geraldine whispered. "I don't really care. I'm going to tell him soon enough anyway. But I'd rather he heard I liked him from me."

"Aren't you afraid he won't like you?" Lily asked.

"Yes, of course." Geraldine said. "I don't like to think about it though…"

Lily shook her head.

"Do you fancy your friend?"

Lily's emerald eyes felt like they'd pop out and roll onto the giant carpet of the Gryffindor Lion. "Fancy? Of course not! No! We're not like that." She shivered. "I've never liked anyone that way…you know, romantically, I mean."

"I understand." Geraldine said. "Friendships are probably better anyway. That's what Mum says anyway."


	7. Chapter 7

It was difficult for Lily to fall asleep in her strange, new bed—especially with so many girls in the room whispering and giggling. Geraldine took the bed next to Lily and wouldn't stop telling her magical childhood pranks until around midnight when the perfect girl told them she'd take points from Gryffindor if she heard any more noises.

Lily awoke the next day under the sheets with the eerie residue of a most unhappy dream. She had dreamed that Sev and she were walking through the overgrown trees behind Mrs. Fallows' house and the trees had become alive. Even the branches they had been carrying as swords attacked them—hovering in the air and swinging at them. They ran through the forest—feeling the rustle of trees bending and reaching towards them with their branches. Suddenly a root had snaked across the path and wrapped around Sev's ankle, bringing him to the ground. It dragged him along the leafy path into the dark mouth of the trees—so fast Lily couldn't even grab his hand. All Lily could do was run back to the house, completely defeated.

She got up immediately, remembering Sev. She was going to try to meet him before breakfast in the Great Hall. Thankfully, Geraldine was still asleep, so Lily could dress and sneak down to the commons alone.

There wasn't anyone in the commons except for a couple of boys sitting around a table. She wouldn't have noticed them either, until—

BOOM!

An explosion sounded through the entire room and a nasty smelling smoke spewed from behind a high-backed maroon chair facing away from her.

"Bloody hell, Peter! I told you not to sit there!" A boy with grey eyes and brown, matted hair shouted.

"Quiet, Sirius. You're making more noise than the dungbomb." Another boy with glasses hissed at him.

"What's going on here?" The boys were already starting to clean up the mess, but a boy perfect was descending the staircase with a most serious expression.

Lily started to back towards the door.

"You girl! Stop!" The perfect commanded. Lily froze. _Already in trouble on the first day of school. Just my luck._

"The girl had nothing to do with it." The boy with glasses spoke, looking at Lily. Lily looked at the perfect.

"A dungbomb, huh?" The perfect said, ignoring Lily's gaze and turning to the boys.

"It wa-was…an accident, sir." A third boy with mousy hair had emerged from behind the chair.

"Oh really? Setting off a dungbomb on the first day of classes? I won't have these shenanigans on any day."

"We weren't up to any shenanigans. He sat his fat arse on the box and set them all off. All of them detonated. What a waste." The grey-eyed boy the boy with glasses had called Sirius said angerily.

"That you even have dungbombs at Hogwarts is questionable behavior." The perfect said. "Five points from Gryffindor. I'm seriously disappointed with all of you. First years and already causing trouble. "

The boy with glasses smirked at Sirius as soon as the perfect went back up the stairs. "All detonated huh?"

"Except for the seven of them left in the box…" Sirius grinned, handing him the 8-pack box of dungballs.

Lily sneered and left the common room. _What a bunch of stupids. Wasting my time. _She thought. She hurried down the flights of stairs, nearly getting lost twice when the stairs accidently moved on her on her way down to the Great Hall.

Luckily, Sev was standing outside the Great Hall waiting for her. He looked gloomier than usual, completely ignoring the cheerful morning sunshine flooding through the windows and the warm smell of food issuing from the Great Hall. He didn't even smile as Lily approached him.

"Hey, Sev." She said, smiling.

He nodded, looking past her at the stone wall with a lighted torch.

Lily looked at him, trying to figure out what was going on in his head. "What?" She finally said. "No hello? Hi, I missed you?"

"We're class enemies now." Sev said.

Lily burst out laughing. "You're really going to believe that nonsense?! So we sleep and eat in different houses—just like in our neighborhood back in Cokeworth. Doesn't mean we can't hang out after classes. This is so foolish. I can't believe I'm hearing this from you—of all people...you, always so rational." She couldn't help laughing humorlessly.

"I don't want to hear the word Cokeworth again." Sev said angrily.

"Hey." Lily frowned. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. It's just we're wizard and witch now. And we need to move on."

"I agree…" Lily's voice cracked. She needed a glass of water.

"Good." Sev said.

"We're still friends, yeah?" Lily asked.

"Sure." Sev shrugged. He felt like turning and walking into the Great Hall alone; give Lily the silent treatment. He was so angry at her. _Why? Just because she was sorted into Gryffindor? No, she couldn't help that. But why the hell was she so cheerful about it? _When he was alone in the Slytherin common room all night watching the giant squid playing around in the lake…_his only companion in the world now. And everyone was so stupid here._ He thought witches and wizards were all supposed to be like he and Lily were. _But they were just as much airheads as muggles._ So happy and excited and cheerful about the stupidest things like dungbombs and wizard celebrities and their families. So many things were bugging him today. The only thing he had to look forward to now was class. Even Lily had disappointed him. _How could she not see how stupid everything was here?_

"I figure you've already made tons of friends." Sev said.

"Not really." Lily sighed. "What about you?"

"No one. Everyone's so stupid here too."

"Oh, please, Sev. We've been here one day. Stop being so sour!" Lily glared at him.

"I can't help how I feel." Sev said, setting his jaw. "We really are surrounded by idiots."

"You could control yourself better." Lily said.

"Control myself?!" Sev shouted. "I control myself plenty. I avoid contact with anyone I can't stand just so I won't blow up at them! And maybe I should do the same with you."

"Aw, Sev…" Lily said, touching his arm.

"Just leave me alone!" He said, throwing it off of him. He stormed into the hall and plopped himself down in the corner of the Slytherin table where she couldn't see him from the entrance.

Lily glared at the wall he had been looking at_. Why are you being such an ass? I don't even care anymore._ She walked into the hall and sat down in the middle of the Gryffindor table with her back to Severus. Other students began to file in and sit around her. She took a bit of toast and eggs and began to read her Transfiguration textbook.

"Hey."

Lily looked up, expecting Geraldine, but instead it was the boy with glasses from the misadventure in the common room. She remembered he had been sorted, but she completely forgot his name. He was standing up across the table from her.

"Hi." Lily said curtly, turning back to her textbook.

"Sorry about this morning." He said, trying to smooth out his messy black hair that stuck out in every direction.

"I don't care." Lily said.

He grinned and walked back over to where his two friends were sitting down towards the end of the table.

Lily sighed heavily, turning back to her Transfiguration textbook.

And then Geraldine sat down beside her, loading her plate with eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, fruit, and a muffin. "The food's so good here!" She exclaimed, looking at Lily and noticing the circles under Lily's eyes. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine." Lily sighed without looking up from her book. "You excited for classes?"

"Of course!" Geraldine said. "My sister's super good at charms, though...so I have a lot to live up to. She's just good at all subjects really…despite being super antisocial. Probably what makes her so smart."

"She should meet my friend then." Lily sighed.

"Oh?" Geraldine said, munching on some toast.

"He just hates everyone here!" Lily said, burying her head into the textbook. "Even me now apparently. We're all so stupid to him."

"Oh." Geraldine said. "Well, he's being a turd. Why should you care what he thinks? He can just wallow in his narcissistic unhappiness if he wants."

"Because he's my friend."

"Well, once he starts acting like he's your friend you can care. But right now he's being a turd."

Lily laughed.

"It must feel weird having a sister in a different house than you, huh?"

"Not really…we have pretty different personalities, besides looking so alike. My sister used to be fat too, but then she got super emo and lost a lot of weight."

"You're not fat." Lily said.

"Nah. I'm just voluptuous. Have you read _Anna Karenina_?"

"No." Lily said.

"But you're from a muggle family aren't you?"

"Yeah…" Lily said. "I've heard of it. My mom's actually a secondary school English teacher."

"They teach you English…?"

"English literature, I mean. She loves books though. We have it on our shelf at home, but I haven't read it."

"It's such a good book!" Geraldine said.

"I can't believe you've already read it. It's like 700 pages." Lily said.

"You should read it. I brought a copy with me. You can borrow it. You're from a muggle family, come on!"

"It's a long book, okay? Tuney's read it though… She always reads stuff like that." Lily pinched her nose.

"Tuney?"

"My older sister."

"You have an older sister? What house is she in?"

"She doesn't go here. She's a muggle."

"Really?" Geraldine's blue eyes widened in fascination.

"Yeah…I'm the freak of the family, I guess." Lily said.

"Milady, you're no freak." Geraldine said, pointing a fork at her. "Otherwise, what am I?" And she burst out laughing. "I really do love muggle literature. If I were a muggle…" She said dreamily. "I'd probably becoming a professor of literature. But nope…I've got to study magic. Maybe I'll do muggle studies in literature…"

"That sounds so boring, to be honest." Lily said. "Muggles really aren't that interesting."

"They're interesting if you haven't grown up in their world… Also, history is so, so fascinating too! The medieval witch hunts and stuff. I love reading all about those."

"Medieval history is so depressing." Lily said.

"Eh, kind of…" Geraldine said. "But it's fascinating. Oh, look—"

Owls began to soar into the Great Hall delivering packages and letters to students. Lily stared with her mouth open. Geraldine sat there expectantly, smiling happily over a good breakfast.

Lily watched as a big package wrapped in string and brown paper dropped in front of the boy with glasses. Of course she wouldn't be getting anything, and here this boy was probably getting a big present from his parents just for the first day of school. Geraldine smiled as a letter dropped in front of her. "I have a friend who goes to school at Durmstrang—it's a Wizarding school in Norway, so we write letters to each other. We hung out last summer when my dad was in Norway studying the Norwegian Ridgeback dragons with her parents." She explained to Lily, opening the letter.

Lily looked at her enviously. _She'd never even been to Norway. And dragons?! What magical world was this if dragons really, really did exist?!_

"Why don't you want to study dragons?!" Lily asked her. "Dragons are way cooler than muggles!"

"Not really when you've been around them your whole life." Geraldine said.

"What?!" Lily shook her head. "You're crazy, Geraldine. What I'd give to have a dad like yours. My dad's a clerk at an attorney's office, and he's the most boring human I know."

"Well, yes, it's a cool job…but he's really busy all the time, and it's up to me and my sister to entertain ourselves. So we both read a lot. And honestly, dragons smell terrible. And it sucks traveling all the time. Mostly he just leaves us at home, but Mum insisted we take a family vacation…so he centered it around his job, as usual."

"My dad's always busy too…" Lily said, but Geraldine was reading her letter.

She looked around the Great Hall. Sev had already left, and the boy with glasses apparently had ordered more dungbombs. So it wasn't gifts from his parents like a lot of students.

She couldn't wait to hurry up and start. She was so nervous and didn't think the reading was going to help her be prepared for Transfiguration. How were they so sure she even could do any of this? She was muggle born. She hadn't had any time to practice any of the curriculum with her parents at all! They couldn't help her even if they wanted to help her. What if she failed and got kicked out? Wouldn't Sev be triumphant then? Wouldn't that just prove how much alike her dumb sister she was? She sighed and buried her head in her book, waiting for the ten minute warning bell to chime so she could go to class


	8. Chapter 8

Lily sat down in Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration class, feeling as if she were about to take a final examination. She watched what Geraldine was doing, but even Geraldine seemed a tad nervous, trying to straighten the rolls of parchment she had placed on top of the Transfiguration textbook.

Lily took out a roll of parchment and decided it was time to test her quill, dipping it into her ink and dating and writing her name on the left-hand side of the page as beautifully as she could.

Just then the door behind them opened a jar and in walked a tabby cat, flicking its tail impatiently as it passed between the desks to the front of the classroom.

"Look! A cat!" Students whispered. "What kind of zoo is this?" The small boy who had sat on the dungbomb in the common room snickered. Someone tried to pet it, but it was too fast.

Lily eyed the cat uncomfortably—there was no way she'd dare to touch it. She couldn't exactly say why, but her instincts told her it was definitely not just an ordinary cat. At the same time she thought, _Okay, Sev has a point. Not everyone here's exactly a genius…._

The cat hopped onto Professor McGonagall's desk in the front of the class and sat down. Its slit eyes surveyed the students, narrowing as chatter grew louder. Just as the clock chimed nine, Lily could've sworn its eyes were lightening, and in a second the cat had jumped from the desk and transformed into Professor McGonagall, pointed hat, emerald cloak, piercing grey eyes, and pursed lips standing before them. She folded her arms as students began to "ooh", "aw", and clap.

"Welcome to Transfiguration." She began. "I'm glad to see your enthusiasm for this subject. I hope that perhaps a quarter of it will remain in you all by the end of the year. You will find that Transfiguration is a difficult subject that requires much more than you simply _wishing_ to transform something. It requires practice—daily, focused practice, and, undeniably, some natural ability, that which I believe is in each of you." She paused to let her words be heard.

"Today we will start with a very small exercise that should encourage the kind of concentration necessary for a successful transfiguration. If each of you could please take a matchbox. This will be our initial subject for today's transformation spell." Matchboxes suddenly appeared on every student's desk.

Lily grabbed a matchbox in wonder. She liked this professor already.

"Study your matchbox." Professor McGonagall instructed. "If I were to choose to turn this matchbox into an animal, as the final subject, what animal might I choose?"

The class stared at her blankly.

"Fine, then. Sometimes it is easier to think about what we should not consider in a transformation. What animals would I not consider transforming this matchbox into?"

_Turning matchboxes into animals._ Lily thought, looking around at the faces of the other students in the room. _She couldn't really be serious? As a first year?_

The class was silent. And then suddenly a voice piped up in the back, "A whale!"

Some students laughed.

"That is a good choice, Mr. Black. A whale we should not consider for the final subject. But can you explain your reasoning why we should not—or rather, cannot—choose to transform a matchbox into a whale?"

"It'd crush us to death?" Sirius grinned his lopsided smile.

The class burst out laughing.

"That's a fair concern, Mr. Black. And foresight of the aftermath of a transfiguration is essential to the ethics of Transfiguration. However, I am looking more for a reason why to transform a matchbox into a whale is fundamentally impossible to do. Mr. Lupin?"

"The initial subject's mass is too small to accommodate the mass of the final subject." A sickly-looking boy with caramel colored hair who had raised his hand answered.

"That is correct, Mr. Lupin." Professor McGonagall smiled primly. "In transformation, we must first consider a near equality of mass between subject initial and subject final. A matchbox turning into a whale is just not a rational possibility without excessive sacrifices on the witch or wizard's part to accomplish this."

"What kinds of sacrifices?" The boy with glasses asked.

"The self-destruction of your wand, for example, Mr. Potter." Professor McGonagall said. "Other transfigurations dabble in Dark Magic, and those result in the loss of a part or the entirety of your soul."

The boy straightened in his chair. "What sort of transfigurations would cause someone to lose their soul?" He asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

McGonagall frowned. "One taboo in Transfiguration is the use of the initial subject's material for an entirely new creation—notoriously, a human soul. Such as in the case of the serial killer Ella the Desolate, who attempted to create from the remains of the many men, whom she had murdered, a perfect human companion, using Dark Magic.

"While it is not difficult for the initial subject of a transformation to obtain the illusion—the shape and movement—of the final subject, to create life using the material of the initial subject would require part or all of a witch or wizard's soul as payment. And that is just the horror Ella committed, creating a half-formed human in exchange for her soul." McGonagall finished.

"What if the initial subject were animate and still alive? Would that still require the spellcaster's soul?" Sirius asked.

"Enough. We are getting off subject." Professor McGonagall spoke harshly, clearly disliking the indelicacy of Sirius's question. "But, it makes a good point that humans must never be considered for either the initial or the final subject of a transformation."

Lily raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Evans." Professor McGonagall said.

"Professor McGonagall, could you tell us, please," She said, feeling the eyes of the thirty first year students from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff on her back, "What happened to the final subject of Ella the Desolate's, er, creation?"

"There was nothing that could be done to reverse the transformation. It was killed."

A heavy silence fell on the class.

McGonagall continued a train of thought. "Transforming your initial subject into a human final subject is the only transformation that is impossible to perform _without_ an absolute exchange of the spellcaster's soul. Perhaps this is because we cannot create an illusion of our likeness without also giving its body a soul. Other animals we find more elusive, so we don't go beyond the appearance of what they are to us."

"Right." She said, transitioning. "Today we will attempt to transform these matchboxes into dormice. Their masses are not quite equal, you would have noticed if you had looked in the back of your textbooks where there is a mass chart for common initial and final transformation subjects in the standard first year Transfiguration class. The dormouse is denser and also has a higher mass than the matchbox, but your wand and your skill as a witch or wizard can handle slight inequalities. The most experienced and powerful wizards are able to accommodate for higher inequalities in mass, but never to the scale of a matchbox and a whale."

Lily turned to the back of the textbook, trying to remember the equation for mass. _Weight takes into account gravity, but mass doesn't. It's the same no matter where you are._

"I must lay down a classroom rule before we begin our first spell." McGonagall said. "Wands must be put away before you enter my classroom and are not to be taken out during class until I give you permission." She looked particularly severe having said this, glancing at every student. "They are tools, not toys or weapons, no matter what other classes or your parents might teach. I will not see them abused in my class. Is that clear enough?"

The class nodded.

"Don't take out your wands just yet. I want you first to imagine a dormouse and get a very clear picture of it in your head. Try to overlap the image of the dormouse in your mind's eye with the view of the matchbox you see in front of you. Make them into a metaphor. Make them so similar they are the same thing—form that connection. The stronger the connection, the easier it will be to make the transformation. I'll give you a few minutes to concentrate." She said.

The room was silent. Lily tried as hard as she could to picture a dormouse—_furry, curled tail, quivering, whiskered nose, beady black eyes nearly popping out of its head, a chubby and furry body folded into a little ball._ And then she looked at the little matchbox, the red lines on either side of the box to swipe the matches, with fine patterns _almost like whiskers._ Maybe it could be a dormouse if she squinted. Her eyes narrowed. _But how could something so rectangular become something so soft and round?_

"Right, I'll give you the spell now. Please take out your wands." Professor McGonagall said.

Lily found her wand in the bottom of her messenger bag.

McGonagall demonstrated the movement for the class, and then watched them. And then she recited the spell with the movement, focusing on her own matchbox. And it turned into a dormouse, curled up on her desk.

"Now you try." Professor McGonagall nodded.

Lily concentrated on the matchbox, trying to think of it as already a dormouse, trying to imagine that they was nothing to change at all. It was a dormouse, curled up right on top of her desk, its little lungs swelling and relaxing as it breathed. She followed the flick of her wand, but her words got tangled up on her tongue—she had spoken too late.

She tried again, focusing on the cadence of the spell and the rhythm of her arm and the vision that on top of her desk was a sleeping dormouse.

There was a silent puff. On top of her desk was a boxy dormouse with square shoulders, fast asleep. Even its honey fur moved in a peaceful rhythm as it breathed—the exact same tempo as the spell had been cast in. Lily beamed and looked over at Geraldine, whose dormouse looked perfect, except for its mouth that slid open like a matchbox.

"Look at how ridiculous it is!" Geraldine snorted as the dormouse popped open its mouth and stuck out its red matchstick tongue. Lily laughed.

McGonagall walked around examining the transformations.

"That was well cast, Miss Evans." Professor McGonagall almost smiled. "But I don't think you had quite settled the juxtaposition of images in your mind. Miss Sinclair, you suffered from the opposite problem. You need to work on your casting, but the image final was well conceived."

When she had finished walking around the room and looking at dormice, she called the class to attention. "As I said, Transfiguration requires daily practice and much focus, so expect homework every day. I want you to read the first chapter of _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_ by our next class. Write a short essay on the history of Transfiguration, and also practice juxtaposing images in your head of appropriate initial and final subjects for transformation."


	9. Chapter 9

Sev's jaw had begun to ache by the time he sat down in Potions from all the grimacing he had done during the Charms lesson with the Ravenclaw first years—_and Ravenclaws were supposed to be clever!_

Not that any of the Slytherins had proved themselves to be worthy of his affection. He slumped back in his chair gloomily, looking at the caldrons bubbling on the Bunsen burners on Professor Slughorn's desk. He missed Lily sorely, and he knew she would be in this class and wanted to talk to her. But he knew he couldn't. She had to be the one to talk to him first. He had promised himself that he wouldn't talk to her until she talked first…_and realized how stupid she was being!_ A rush of anger flared from his thoughts, as he remembered how Lily had acted that morning. But hadn't he been wrong? Hadn't he overreacted? So they were in separate houses, no one could change that. But she had been right…that wouldn't stop them from seeing each other. He watched the door impatiently, putting his school bag on the chair next to him, so she could sit there.

Just then a boy with messy hair and glasses and the most unbearable smirk on his face strolled into the room. It was a smirk of complete and total arrogance. Lily had been sorted into _his_ house. Gryffindor, the house of the _proud_. Severus hesitated. _Talk to Lily or wait? _If she thought she could just have her way with him, she was wrong! Use him while she went off and made lots of other friends!

He was flanked by a shaggy-looking, tall boy and a round, little boy and the rest of class followed in suite. And then he saw Lily! Talking to a plump girl with raven black hair in a single braid.

_Well, that settled it. _He sat there glaring at the Gryffindors as they filed in, keeping his back to Lily, who he knew had taken a seat in the back of the class.

"Don't get too comfortable." Slughorn said before taking a sip from one of the beakers. He gulped and sighed. "I'm going to assign a seating chart. I never did like this way of dividing classes into houses. Classes should divide houses."

Sev felt a sudden thrill. _What if he assigned Lily as his partner?_

"Alright, Cobalt, Sinclair…at this desk." Slughorn motioned to the farthest, lefthand corner desk in the front of the class.

A Slytherin boy with auburn hair and yellow eyes stood up and joined the unathletic, pale girl with the braided black hair as she sat down on their bench.

Slughorn pointed to the middle desk. "Greensleeves, Parkinson."

And the far righthand corner desk. "Longbottom, Lance."

And the next row. "Willoughby, Johnson." "Diggory, Pettigrew." The little round boy found his seat next to a taciturn Slytherin boy. "Black, Brown." The shaggy haired boy sat down.

And the next row. "Evans, Lupin." Severus watched in pure disappointment as Lily took a seat next to—another Gryffindor! A sickly boy with rings like saucers around his eyes.

And then, "Snape, Potter." Severus saw who this Potter was. _God no! _Severus stared, watching the arrogant boy make his way to his seat, looking around to see who his partner was, and locking eyes on Severus, grinning.

"Snape, huh?" The Potter boy said, sitting down. "Never heard of a wizard go by that name."

Severus sat down. "It's a muggle name." He hissed, suddenly furious at this arrogant-looking boy he had hardly met and taking all it could to hold himself under. How strange it was to hate a face simply for its look. But there was a look that reminded him so much of his father—a sort of narrow-minded, decisive arrogance—undeniable judgmentalness.

"I meant to ask you for your first name, idiot." Potter said, angry at Snape for his tone of voice that was so rude. What did he care if this Snape was a muggle? He didn't need to be so touchy.

"Then why didn't you ask, you arrogant, foul-mannered, narcissistic coward who wants everyone to read your mind and give a damn about you?" Severus seethed. Name-calling wasn't the sort of insult that affected him. But the face of Potter himself was what had already pissed Severus off.

"Whoa, calm down, mate." Potter said opening his hands, but obviously beginning to flare up himself. "I was just curious what your name is."

"You can call me Severus." Severus said, glaring at him, and he looked away.

"I'm James." The Potter kid said, obviously trying to play it cool after having just insulted his partner and gotten his fair send off in return. _What a lying, conniving little bitch. _Severus thought. _Fuck you fuck you fuck you!_

Slughorn had finished assigning the seating chart. "Okay, today, students, we're just going to run through some basic techniques you'll use in Potions. We'll need to calibrate our instruments, which needs to be done at the beginning of every potion making. So I'll have a boiling pot of water in the back for you to check your thermometers, and then standard weights in the front on my desk for you all to check your scales. You'll find that Potions is a subject that requires very fine accuracy and precision. You'll have to be very delicate with your materials and be very sure to add the most correct amount of all materials when making a potion. It's not a guessing game. You need to be aware at all times of the procedure, so if something goes wrong, you can know just exactly where.

"It's a first year class, so the potions we make are very standard, although to you maybe not easy, and have been tested time and time again for several millenniums. Perhaps you will not find this class interesting at first. But for those with apt minds, Potions is a very exciting and ever expanding field. But first two things are required: patience and the ability to think of the world in a way quite differently than you've ever experienced it.

"I noticed a lot of my students lack a poetic mind, and that is how they fail in Potions. They look at a tree, and they tell me it's a tree. They look at a cat, and they say it's just a cat. But what kind of tree? And what kind of cat? And what time of day is it? Is there a full moon shining between the leaves, dying the lethargic leaves of the willow tree silver? Or is there a rising sun gilding the thick tangle of wispy leaves—so that it resembles pasta or the golden head of a princess of the earth. You see my point, right?" He looked at the class, frowning.

The class looked at him blankly.

"It might not seem like a poetic mind, generally exploited for entertainment, would lend itself to something as serious and demanding for precision and accuracy as Potions, but you see, that sort of attention to detail is exactly what Potions needs. We don't need bravery or cunning, we don't need any ultimate sacrifices or sly persuasion, no heroes or charlatans—Gryffindor and Slytherin. Hahaha! Sorry, Slytherins, you are of my house, of course, so I have to poke a little fun at myself at the expense of you all. What we need is awareness and the lack of presumptions. Something, I find, Hufflepuffs are the best at—and you say Hufflepuffs have no skill! Sometimes, I find, the least judgmental of people are the most perceptive." Slughorn said, patting his stomach that was poking out from his tweed jacket.

"You Slytherins, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws all thrive on presumptions. Good and evil, loyalty, alignment, manipulation, persuasion, cleverness—blah, blah, blah…who cares? In my class, all I require is awareness and an open-mindedness that allows for discovery and quality observations. You don't need to put your opinions and bias into any of this subject—into any of the potions we make in this class. Now, let's start the calibrations. And then I'm going to have you make a very simple healing potion that actually won't do much more than cure a light headache…because I have one right now."

He looked at the faces of his class. "Yes, I know. How exciting." He said. "Now, let's get to it. What are you all staring at me for?" He shrugged, sitting down at his desk.


	10. Chapter 10

Lily hurried to the back of the class with her thermometer, sticking it into the pot of boiling water. She gave it the chance to heat up, waiting there patiently in the back and avoiding eye contact with Sev, who she saw was coming over. All the other students began to stick their thermometers in too.

"Hey!" Slughorn yelled. "You only need one student per table to calibrate their thermometer, since only one potion is going to be made at each table. The other student should be calibrating their scale."

Lily had forgotten to talk to her lap partner, but she realized he hadn't followed her back to the boiling water, but was already sitting at the desk calibrating the scale with the standard weight.

Lily smiled at the sharpness of her partner's mind. Even she hadn't been thinking that far ahead.

Neither had Severus or his partner.

"Go calibrate the scale!" Sev nearly shouted at James, pointing to the weights on Slughorn's desk.

"Okay, okay, fine. Calm down. Jesus." James said, turning back to the desk.

He threw a look at Sirius, rolling his eyes. Sirius laughed, joining him to get a standard weight.

Sev walked back and stood next to Lily, dipping his thermometer into the boiling water.

He looked at Lily, but didn't talk. Lily looked away awkwardly. _Too bad Geraldine was also a scale calibrator._ She caught herself thinking. Oh god, what was she doing? He was her friend.She looked at his face. _Maybe…he was sorry? God, why did this have to happen in the middle of class? _She couldn't deal with this drama now!

"Hey, Sev." She said.

"Hi." He said, looking at his thermometer. "I'm kind of busy, so I can't talk now."

Lily felt like she'd been slapped. She hadn't even wanted to talk to him, but did it to avoid an awkward situation. "Well, obviously!" She snapped. "Just wanted to be polite and acknowledge you, friend."

_Smooth, Severus._ Severus thought, instantly regretting how stupid he'd been. He meant, he couldn't talk _now_… He knew what he needed to say.

"I meant, I can't talk now. But I want to talk." He pleaded. "I'm sorry."

Lily nodded. "I understand. Yeah, we can talk after classes. My last one ends at three."

"Same." Severus said.

"Okay. I'll meet you at the entrance to the Great Hall then." And she removed her thermometer and walked back to the desk.

"I put out the materials on the front desk. Flip to page 32 for the instructions for the Sooth Aches Draught." Slughorn bellowed, so the students still calibrating thermometers would hear. Sound echoed in the dungeon rooms and made it difficult to hear when students were talking—even if they were whispering.

When Lily had returned to her desk, Remus Lupin, which she found out was the sickly boy's full name, had already started to heat up the water, which formed the basis of the draught.

"We need 2 grams Mandrake tails." Remus said. "And they need to be ground into a powder. Funny, I didn't think Mandrakes had tails."

"What are Mandrakes?" Lily asked.

"Little plants with humanoid roots that actually cry. An adult Mandrake root can kill you if you hear it cry."

"Wow." Lily said.

"Maybe it's a word for the roots that aren't really part of the Mandrake's body." Remus thought out loud.

"I can ground the Mandrake tails." Lily offered. "Hey," she suddenly thought, "If you're vegetarian, can you eat Mandrake roots?"

"I've never thought about it." Remus said. "Maybe? I don't think most witches or wizards are vegetarian. It seems like a lot of things kind of morph together in the Wizarding World—the distinction between plant and animal isn't quite as clear."

"Oh."

"Anyway, I think I'll grab the other materials and start preparing that. And I'll pick up your Mandrake tails too. Once the powdered Mandrake tails go in, a bunch of other ingredients need to go in within the minute, so I'll have those ready to go."

"Okay." Lily said, flipping open the textbook.

She looked at the instructions carefully. It was a simple potion—only five ingredients—but she barely knew any of the creatures or plants, whose parts she was using for the potion, on the list_. Acromantula webs—probably to get the potion to coagulate, _Lily thought as she read. _Ashwinder backbone, frozen Devil's Snare, shredded Umbrella Flowers…?_

Lily wanted to spend the class just studying the ingredients, but Remus insisted on following the potion's expedient instructions and as soon as Lily had gently poured the Mandrake tails powder into the simmering water, Remus lowered in the backbone, turned up the heat, and began to stir in the Umbrella Flowers he had shredded while Lily cut up the Acromantula webs into manageable strings, and they left the Devil's Snare to thaw—but _not thaw too long_, as Professor Slughorn warned. This was mostly why the potion had to be made quickly. You'd think there'd have been enough light in the room, so the Devil's Snare wouldn't begin to attack them, but you'd be wrong. The dungeons were apparently poorly lit enough for a healthy, well slept Devil's Snare to become curious. It latched itself onto Lily's arm, more like cuddling her than squeezing the blood out of her arm.

"Aw, it's grown affectionate with hibernation." Professor Slughorn cooed, actually smiling as Lily removed it from her slender arm.

"Too bad we've got to kill it." Lily said. Remus had finished with the Umbrella flowers.

"Yes, a pity." Slughorn agreed. "But if you can't kill it, probably Herbology or Care of Magical Creatures is more your subject. That's how we lose the dear Hufflepuffs, I think."

"Ready, Remus?" Lily asked, grasping the Devil's Snare by its tentacle-like appendages.

"Go for it, Lily." He grinned.

Lily stuffed the plant into the potion, ignoring its screams. Remus prodded the plant into the pot with his thermometer.

Slughorn watched Lily's expression as the plant slowly cooked alive. Her face was wrinkled, but determined—focusing on the final product and adding the rest of the webs. The life could not be wasted—the life of the Ashwinder and the Umbrella Flowers and the Mandrake. Could they matter any less than the Devil's Snare, though they had not died in front of her? She had seen neighbors butcher chicken and a dog get run over a car. She could handle a magical death as well as any of the muggle world.

"You're not a vegetarian, are you?" Slughorn asked her.

"No. Why would you think that?" Lily looked at his round face with its double chin and high forehead with a receding hairline and scrutinizing eyes—a color she could not place. He seemed such a washed out, intellectual man—faded by years spent indoors among books.

"You seem the type." He said. "Nature-y, spiritual, artsy, hippie…that sort."

"Not really." She said. She didn't like to be categorized as a _sort. Like a genre of a book._

"You're muggle born though?" Of course she was! Would she even know the term hippie then?

"Yeah." She said, disliking his questions. _What was he doing? _She had a draught to finish, and here this professor was distracting her.

"You kill very easily." He said.

"I didn't want to waste the life of the things already killed." She replied, turning back to her potion. _Thank god Remus knew what he was doing._ He was a bright kid, she was realizing. He had already let the Devil's Snare disintegrate and had even turned off the Bunsen burner, allowing the draught to finish on the remaining heat. The potion had turned a soothing bronze—the color and the consistency of gravy, except for the bone at the bottom.

"That looks good." Slughorn said. "May I?" He took a ladle from a spare pocket in his tattered robes and leaned over Lily to take a sip of the draught. Lily wrinkled her nose. He smelled unwashed and sweaty.

"That is good." He sighed after a long sip. "Can't even feel the bits of mandrake tails. Could be fewer webs thought..." He paused.

"Excellent work, Evans and Lupin. 10 points to Gryffindor." He turned and went to look at the other draughts, some looking quite terrible and poisonous. Slughorn avoided trying any more potions.

Lily looked over at Sev, who was yelling at his partner about having put in too many Umbrella Flowers.

James just rolled his eyes. "You do it then." He said, pushing himself away from the table.

Somehow Severus had managed to salvage it by the end of class. He took out all the Umbrella Flowers and slowly reintroduced half the value than the draught instructions called for. And Slughorn had blessed it with his second honorary sip of a stellar student's potion. "Not bad, Snape. Not bad at all. 10 points to Slytherin"

Severus met Lily's curious eye and grinned. She smiled back. _Poor Sev. Having such a terrible Potions partner._


End file.
